Random Photos

Rive · May 1, 2023

The Skeptic in the Garden

A black cat with green eyes sitting on someone's lap in a garden, looking to the side, with green shrubs and a stone paving path behind.

Andy Resnick · May 1, 2023

I played around with some of the lenses that I rarely use. All images are full-frame D810, no post-processing, jpg straight from the camera, etc... First, the Luminar Zoom image of an Intel 1602A:

Photomicrograph of an integrated circuit die bonded to a gold-plated package, with fine gold bond wires running from the chip's edge pads to the package leads.

Next, a Leica 10X Mirau lens, designed to be used for profilometry. This is a random FET, the fringe pattern is used to measure the surface profile:

Microscope image of two square chip pads separated by a gap, with interference fringes crossing the surface in rainbow colors showing surface height variation.

The major step change occurs from the base (blue surface) to the greenish pad, the fringes shift almost exactly 1/2 a wavelength (note- this is white-light fringes, no color filter used), my guess is the height change is about 250 nm. And then you can see another big height change stepping up to the top layer. Helpfully, Leica sells software that will do a better job of image analysis :)

Last is a pair of images showing the effect of epi-DIC: 80/0.95 Epiplan lens, INKO DIC

Microscope image of an integrated circuit showing rows of rounded yellow-orange pads and rectangular structures, with two square textured regions, rendered in warm, low-contrast color.

Microscope image of an integrated circuit die in blue-green tones, showing rows of rounded rectangular cells and two square textured regions with a fringe-like relief pattern.

Moving the prism from just barely positive to a just-barely negative position reverses the sense of surface relief.

jack action · May 2, 2023

The following is NOT a tricked photo. How long does it take for you to figure out what you are looking at?

Split-colour photo of a white egret wading in shallow water, with the left half tinted blue and the right half tinted golden orange.

The top part on the right is a building in the water. The lower part on the right is the reflection of the building in the water.

TonyStewart · May 2, 2023

Illustrated magazine cover in the style of The New Yorker, with a bald man with an orange beard and dark sweater seen from behind, carrying a brown leather bag, against a background of detailed circuit board traces and components. Masthead reads "THE NEW YORKER" in part obscured.

chat.open.ai/images for "electronics circuit design of tony on the new yorker

cover"

Electronic Design in the style of Picasso

Cubist-style painting of a face with angular planes, one large eye and red lips, set against a background of geometric shapes in blue, green, red and yellow.

Electronic design in space

Dense blue printed circuit board layout with yellow traces, chips and small components, with a large dark glossy sphere on the right and a glowing light at the top left.

jtbell · May 2, 2023

jtbell said:

The state has been building a replacement for the old bridge leading into our neighborhood. Maybe soon it will be finished, finally.

View attachment 324924

And then we all can stop using Amazon delivery drones. Just kidding... there's another way into the neighborhood. This is from about three months ago:

View attachment 324925

We had to listen to that pile driver for a few weeks. Bam! ... Bam! ... Bam!

And now it's finished! They took away the barricades this afternoon, between when I started my afternoon walk and when I returned.

Asphalt road running straight ahead between tree-lined verges, with a white car in the distance on a newly repaved bridge, a wooden utility pole on the right and a culvert pipe in the grass at lower right.

Point Conception · May 3, 2023

Row of narrow multi-storey buildings with painted red and white facades, window air conditioners and water tanks, lining a dirt road with palm trees and the sea visible at the end.

TonyStewart · May 3, 2023

Design by da Vinci on the cover of Vogue by openAI art

Painted portrait of a woman with dark hair parted at the center, a dark beaded necklace and a red embroidered dress, against a muted background; the word "VOGUE" is partly visible across the top, cropped.

Painted cover in the style of a Vogue magazine, with a large VOGUE masthead, showing a woman with pale skin and long auburn hair in a rust-red hood and dress, wearing a silver necklace; cover lines are mostly illegible.

Surreal painting styled as a Vogue magazine cover, with the masthead VOGUE in red letters across the top; a pale woman with long dark hair, red lips and a draped grey shawl sits centred, her body elongated and fused with a large vertical form beneath her chest, with partly legible text reading "Pr Forest" near the bottom.

Da Vinci Art in oil on Mad Magazine

Oil painting in a wooden frame, in the style of Renaissance portraiture, of a man with long dark wavy hair and a yellow cap, wearing a loose olive-green garment, with his hand raised to the left against a blue sky background.

Exotic Interior Design

Digitally rendered bedroom with an ornate tiled ceiling, cream walls, a white bed with a gold-patterned throw, a red patterned rug, and gold armchairs, with a large stylised flower artwork on the wall.

pinball1970 said:

Wow! That is a genuine image? No touch up?

Highly touched up. When you turn up the gain in a gamma curve then quantization noise from the limited number of colour levels for RGB (256 each) for 3 byte chroma These then show up on a histogram as discrete spikes of colour intensity levels difficult for our eyes to detect for untrained eyes. So I compared a couple random photos on Irfanview and disabled curve fit.

Where the density of a colour levels becomes sparse, you know the colour was amplified for that brightness level.

Two screenshots of the Irfanview Image Histogram window over photographs: the top one shows a histogram of a close-up of pink roses, the lower one a grey-scale histogram of a hazy sky with sparse spikes.

It's the same way led white would look with a strong Blue spike and yellow-red phosphor. For most things, you can't tell unless the object has a continuous range of colours to reflect then you see the gaps by the "off" colour. This is why I prefer tri-phospor FL tubes over dual phosphor LEDs for under cabinet lights in kitchen to see food prep or marble/granite

Irfanview32 is my GoTo picture viewer with T thumbnails and quick edits. (free) and supports Abobe filters. Somewhat like GIMP and others with a couple more features but certainly less than pro tools.

TonyStewart · May 3, 2023

Andy Resnick said:

That's correct- no autofocus. Thanks!

Nice job.

The fuzzy logic focus used by Sony (perhaps others now with target recognition) has been impressive to me in dark conditions. I tried to catch surfers with 10x binoculars in front of an iPad lens once. I needed really steady hands, but the old school Sony handicams with 800x zoom with Steadicam are impressive for lost cost.

TonyStewart · May 5, 2023

Grey, shaggy-coated dog with a black nose and dark leash on the right, looking left across a grassy field of yellow dandelions.

iPhone 10Pro Max

OpenAI

Long-exposure night photo of traffic on a curving elevated road, with white and red light trails streaking along the lanes, lit trees and a spire-topped building in the background. Caption reads: Traffic, long exposure, night: hires near disneyland

DennisN · May 5, 2023

Magpies courting (I think) in a tree:

Two magpies silhouetted against a blue sky on a bare branch, one with wings spread and tail fanned, the other facing it with its beak lowered.

Gear: Sony A6000 + Sony 55-210mm + B+W linear polarization filter.

This was a lucky shot; I noticed that these two magpies were moving a bit strangely in a tree, so I directed the camera at them and let the camera go off like a small machine gun

. Afterwards I went through the photos and found this one.

Magpies are interesting birds for a variety of reasons. They (Eurasian magpie) are extremely common (at least where I live) but it wasn't until I started "hunting" them with camera that I noticed they are extremely observant and very hard to get close to. They are also very intelligent birds.

Going Rambo

Since I like photographing birds and have noticed how difficult it can be to get closer to them, I've decided to "go Rambo"...

I never ever thought I'd be buying camo gear, but it happened.

(I notify @Andy Resnick about camo gear, since it seems you enjoy photographing birds too

)

Green and brown multicam-pattern baseball cap with a hook-and-loop patch, resting on a camouflage mat above six rolls of camouflage self-adhesive tape.

Camo gear:

Camo cap & scarf (Amazon link) - the cap is for the head, and the scarf for covering lens (side) and perhaps part of camera
Camo fabric tape rolls (Amazon link) - I didn't know such products existed, but now I know . I will use the camo tape to cover one of my camera bags and perhaps other things (backpack/small bags). Note: the Amazon page states it is self-adhesive, but the rolls I got weren't particularly adhesive, so I'll either sew or glue the tape to attach it.
Camo Waist Bag (Amazon link) (not in my photo since it hasn't arrived yet)

I'll probably soon be looking for a camo jacket and camo pants too.
And then I will disappear from sight

.

TonyStewart · May 5, 2023

OpenAI: downtown bottom half mirror image

Black and white image of a city street with tall buildings, mirrored along a horizontal line so the lower half is an upside-down reflection of the upper half, with a caption reading "downtown bottom half= mirror image".

O

City skyline of tall glass and gold-toned skyscrapers under a cloudy blue sky, mirrored in still water below the horizon line.

penAI

Wide-angle view of a city street with tall glass and stone skyscrapers, seen reflected in a curved car side mirror against a clear blue sky, with a yellow center line on the road.

TonyStewart · May 5, 2023

openAI text as shown

Digitally generated image of a black vintage steam locomotive with large driving wheels seemingly falling off a sheer rock cliff, with white steam billowing from its smokestack and a green wooded hillside below.

Steam locomotive with a long line of brown carriages running along a ledge cut into a steep, rocky cliff face, with white steam billowing from its smokestack.

Steam locomotive with a tall black smokestack and a large round headlamp with a clock face, emitting white steam, running along a narrow stone-edged track beside a rocky cliff face.

steam engine falling off a cliff hires

TonyStewart · May 5, 2023

openAI : memories of Loyal Chapman's art of golf but not as well as he did for 18 holes for fantasy golf courses

Aerial view of a golf course with many large, irregular pale sand bunkers scattered across green fairways, with a few trees and rough grass in the foreground.

Aerial view of a golf course with green fairways, sand bunkers and a tall city skyline behind, with a curved multi-storey building with balconies and rooftop greenery built into the course.

impossible golf from penthouse

Computer-generated aerial view of a golf hole with a green surrounded by sand bunkers, a winding pond with rocky edges, and a small putting green on the right.

Aerial view of a golf green with a red flag on a cliff-top course above the ocean, with white sand bunkers in the foreground and a second green on rocky headland behind.

Aerial view of a golf course on rugged coastal cliffs beside the ocean, with green fairways winding between sand bunkers, and a caption reading impossible difficult golf course.

Aerial view of a golf green with a flag and putter-style pin, surrounded by sand bunkers and tufted dune grass, with another green visible in the background.

Stylized digital painting of a golf course on rugged, rocky cliffs, with a large putting green in the foreground surrounded by sand bunkers and a second green on a ledge at right.

BadgerBadger92 · May 5, 2023

Some of my work

Black and white photo of a young bearded man in a flat cap and jacket, looking over his shoulder, seated in a café with a long bar counter and stools behind him.

Black and white photo of an old one-room schoolroom with wooden desks and a wall clock, where a figure draped in a white sheet stands before a chalkboard near a sunlit window.

Black and white photo taken with motion blur, showing a blurred corridor or hallway with bright light streaking at the right edge and vertical smeared streaks across the frame.

Black and white photo of a covered railway platform with a baggage cart loaded with suitcases between two passenger trains; left car reads GULF MOBILE & OHIO, right car reads BURLINGTON.

Large graffiti tag in green, yellow, black and white with purple outlines on a wall in a derelict interior, beside a dark doorway and scattered wood debris on the floor.

Point Conception · May 6, 2023

Long weathered wooden pier stretching toward the horizon, with brown metal railings and lanterns on posts, mudflats and calm sea on the left, and a brick building with a green roof at the far end.

Narrow concrete path lined with green shrubs bearing orange flowers, leading under tall shady trees toward a distant railing and sunlight.

Point Conception · May 7, 2023

Narrow concrete lane sloping downhill between dense tropical vegetation, with palm trees, banana plants and frangipani, leading toward a glimpse of blue sea at the end.

Andy Resnick · May 8, 2023

More fun with the 10X Mirau objective, this time a photo of a MEMS microphone, fabricated by Knowles, and likely in your smartphone:

Microscope photo of a MEMS microphone chip showing two circular perforated membranes with rows of small dots and a ring of tabs around each, tinted in blue, pink and green interference colors; printed text partly visible at top.

It's not a great image, but you can clearly see that the membrane has 2 layers- colors inside the dots are different than the color outside the dots, which is the top surface of the device.

TonyStewart · May 8, 2023

Fascinating active noise cancelling technology with silicon MEMS

dlgoff · May 10, 2023

Here's a Black Snake that was getting ready to go under my house:

A long, dark glossy snake lying on a gravel and dirt path with grass and dry leaves around it, its body curved in S-shaped bends.

Point Conception · May 11, 2023

Looking South from Jomtien

Beach view with a tall high-rise tower and several other buildings behind palm trees, moored boats on the sand, and two people wading in the shallow water.

Hazy view across a calm sea toward a range of green hills under a pale blue sky, with a few small white buildings visible at the far left shoreline.

DennisN · May 11, 2023

Some more long exposures in daylight...

Two fountains in the city, with the "dreamy water effect" due to to long exposure:

Long-exposure photo of a city water feature: a stream of smooth, silky water flows down a stepped channel over rounded boulders between two dark curved railings.

Gear: Sony A6000 + Sony Kit Lens + B+W 10-stop ND filter, 5 s exposure, f/9, ISO 100

Long-exposure photo of a stone staircase with a water feature: two large blue-painted pipes angled down the steps, with water flowing over rocks and cascading to the pavement, blurred into a smooth milky stream.

Gear: Sony A6000 + Sony Kit Lens + B+W 10-stop ND filter, 5 s exposure, f/9, ISO 100

DennisN said:

I've been thinking about trying some street shooting in daylight with this technique, but not to achieve the thing you mentioned. I was thinking of the opposite : getting motion blur from people. But when I think of it maybe it's impossible (or very difficult?) since the cars disappeared in my photo (but not their lights), so maybe people are too dark to generate significant motion blur?

I tried it yesterday

, and it seems at least some motion blur from people is possible to get.

Here are some "ghosts" appearing in the city:

Long-exposure daylight photo of a cobbled city street lined with brick and cream-coloured buildings, with translucent ghostly blurred pedestrians and a drain grate in the foreground.

Gear: Sony A6000 + Sony Kit Lens + B+W 10-stop ND filter, 5 s exposure, f/9, ISO 100

Point Conception · May 13, 2023

Jomtien now with the clear, seasonal, prevailing Southerly winds - finally. After months of this smoggy atmosphere coming down from over the land masses to the North.

Choppy green-blue sea with small white-crested waves rolling toward a sandy beach, with a hazy dark mountain ridge under a clear pale blue sky on the horizon.

Seashore with breaking white waves on a hazy blue-grey sea, sandy beach in the foreground, and a row of high-rise hotel and apartment towers along the distant coastline under a clear sky.

jtbell · May 13, 2023

Who remembers Gateway Computers? When I bought two of them for my college's physics lab 25 years ago, each one came with a little foam-rubber cow in the box. Since then, they've been standing guard over our kitchen at home, from the top of the refrigerator.

Two small cream-colored foam-rubber toy cows with black patches, pink snouts and dark hooves, standing side by side on a dark countertop in front of wooden cabinets.

Point Conception · May 17, 2023

Beachside market stalls with yellow and blue striped awnings under pine trees, with a Norwegian flag and a Thai flag displayed among them, and a sandy path running past.

Jomtien Beach promenade

BillTre · May 19, 2023

Saw this plant today.

Feathery green shrub with fine needle-like foliage, pale green new growth, darker older growth and small white flowers, in front of a tree trunk and pink rhododendron blooms.

Light green: new growth this year.
Dark green: older growth from last year.
White: little flowers from the old growth parts.
A developmental sequence revealed in a single plant.

DennisN · May 20, 2023

Bird time again...

First, here's a fieldfare in a park outside the city.
I've seen these before, but they are quite rare here.
It kept the distance and I couldn't get closer than ca 15 m to it (and I didn't wear camo at that time).

It's got a lovely spotted breast:

A fieldfare standing on green grass among fallen brown leaves, with a spotted, streaked breast and a yellow-tipped bill.

Weird stance:

A fieldfare with a grey head, streaked brown and white breast and brown wings, standing on green grass among dry brown fallen leaves.

And here are a couple of Eurasian blue tits in a city cemetery...

Two birds on a branch:

Two Eurasian blue tits perched on thin vertical twigs, one above the other, against a soft green blurred background of branches and foliage.

Singing a tune in the afternoon:

Blue tit perched on a bare branch against a clear blue sky, with yellow underparts, blue crown and white cheeks, and small yellow-green buds nearby.

When I was about to leave the cemetery, two tiny great tits landed right next to me and got very curious. So I picked out my little box with birdseed and put it down. The birds were so close I had to step back a bit in order to be able to get them in focus with the camera...

"Food?"

A great tit feeding on seeds from a black dish on gravel, with yellow underparts, black head and blue-grey wings and tail.

"Yes, food!"

A great tit perched on gravel with a seed in its beak, beside a black dish filled with mixed seeds.

Looking up at something...

A great tit standing on gravel, with a black head and white cheek patch, yellow-green back and belly, grey wings and a long dark tail.

"More food!"

A great tit perched on the rim of a black plastic dish on gravel, pecking at seed inside it.

"I am being fed by a weirdo in a camo shirt"

A great tit perched on the rim of a black plastic container of birdseed, standing on gravel, with a black lid lying beside it.

DennisN · May 21, 2023

DennisN said:

First, here's a fieldfare in a park outside the city.

By the way, I just checked the fieldfare page on Swedish Wikipedia and saw these two nice photos:

Close-up of a fieldfare standing on snow, showing its grey head, orange-yellow bill, dark streaked orange-buff breast and brown back.

Turdus pilaris in snow, Väsby, by EstrellaSuecia

Close-up photo of a fieldfare's head and upper breast, with grey head, yellow bill, dark eye ring and streaked orange-brown breast, against a blurred background of green grass and blue flowers.

Turdus pilaris in Stockholm, Sweden in 2015 by Frankie Fouganthin

I think they are gorgeous birds.

Rive · May 21, 2023

Hiking around a village nearby

Wide view over a flat green meadow of tall grass, with wooded hills, a small town on the left and a distant mountain ridge under a pale sky.

Contrast

A small black and red beetle with long antennae perched on a sprig of small white flowers among green leaves, against a blurred green background.

TonyStewart · May 21, 2023

jtbell said:

Who remembers Gateway Computers? When I bought two of them for my college's physics lab 25 years ago, each one came with a little foam-rubber cow in the box. Since then, they've been standing guard over our kitchen at home, from the top of the refrigerator.

View attachment 326494

I tossed a 20 yr old Gateway Win95 that still booted up about 4 seconds and had lots of apps. Wish I had a museum.

Point Conception · May 23, 2023

With multiple lightning flashes there is just enough time to catch it.

Dusk view from a rooftop terrace with a green-painted parapet, a metal grid trellis holding a potted plant, and a person's legs in white sneakers resting on the ledge while holding a phone, with lit streetlights and buildings in the distance.

Night photo of a woman with long blonde hair leaning over a balcony railing in an orange tank top and black shorts, with a purple cup, a phone on a tray and a green bowl nearby, a city skyline in the background.

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